"Right now, someone, somewhere is developing the killer operating system feature of the future - a feature that will change computing and make us wonder how we lived without it. However, the person responsible probably isn't grafting away in the labs of Microsoft, Apple or Red Hat - he or she is more likely to be working in a bedroom or loft. [...] We'll look at the best alternative operating systems, with the potential to change the computing landscape over the next decade."

The future may be a kernel that recognise all hardware. Once that's achieved, users will choose a desktop and applications to build on top of it.
This is more probable to happen than the Apple solution of closed hardware and related software. Unless Apple is going to take the world on its pocket, which I don't believe.